Training

I have written over and over again about the importance of training your staff. It is imperative if you want at least a fighting chance to succeed. This goes for every position in the restaurant.

Are you the chef?

Show your cooks how you expect the dish to look. Some chefs actually draw pictures for the staff to follow. Have written recipe cards for the cooks to use. Spell out the recipe portion size. Explain exactly how you want it prepared.

Customers want consistency more than anything else. This training of the back of house will provide that consistency and save you a lot of money in food costs.

Are you the Dining Room manager?

Explain to anyone responsible for answering the phones how you want it done. Show them the proper way to take a reservation. Make it clear to the servers what you expect in terms of service. Be detailed about it. Show them the ins and outs of your POS system.

Show those bussers how to set a table. How to stock their station. How you want them to refill water and coffee.

Are you the bar manager?

Have drink recipe standards for your bartenders to follow. Does the drink require one and a half ounces? Two Ounces? One and a quarter ounces? Be clear about it. Show them the proper way to clean up the bar. Again, like with the chef, these things will save you a lot of money, in this case on beverage costs.

Standards and controls

These are not necessarily sexy topics in the restaurant industry, but they are the difference between success, and failure. Having standards in place makes it easy for the staff to know what the expectation is. Makes it clear and do the training.

Having controls in place helps you to make sure that the product you bring in to the restaurant, results in the proper revenue for the restaurant.

Have standards and controls in place, and then train the staff to understand them.

Retrain

This is the part where most restaurateurs come up short. They think if they show an employee once how to do something, that the employee is going to do it that way every time thereafter.

Not true

I have dealt with many a consulting client who has said to me,”I showed them how to do it.” Yeah. Once. You must revisit.

This only works if you are on the floor–not up in the office. This only works if you are engaged. Every day.

Train your staff how you want things done, and revisit it often. Remember, customers want consistency. They want the food to taste the same whether it was cooked by Joe or by Steve.

They want to have a pleasant experience out in the front of the house whether they were waited on by Jerry, or Stacey. It starts with training. It starts with you.